This chapter traces some of the efforts of Jim Crow reformers to transform lynching from a heroic defense of white womanhood and white supremacy, into a manifestation of bad government and social ...
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This chapter traces some of the efforts of Jim Crow reformers to transform lynching from a heroic defense of white womanhood and white supremacy, into a manifestation of bad government and social disorder that threatened the stability of the Jim Crow order. It describes the founding and development of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) to show how the anti-lynching campaign was central to the creation of Jim Crow reformers' identity and beliefs, and how they defined what order and stability meant in the Jim Crow South. Jim Crow reformers, including the journalists in their midst, used the power of the press as well as moral pressure targeted though organized networks of respectable white women in order to end mob violence and public disorder. They also attempted to change and strengthen stateways so as to shift power away from individuals and to the state, by encouraging growth in state police forces and by proposing new state anti-lynching laws.Less

Lynching, Legitimacy, and Order

Kimberley Johnson

Published in print: 2010-03-17

This chapter traces some of the efforts of Jim Crow reformers to transform lynching from a heroic defense of white womanhood and white supremacy, into a manifestation of bad government and social disorder that threatened the stability of the Jim Crow order. It describes the founding and development of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC) to show how the anti-lynching campaign was central to the creation of Jim Crow reformers' identity and beliefs, and how they defined what order and stability meant in the Jim Crow South. Jim Crow reformers, including the journalists in their midst, used the power of the press as well as moral pressure targeted though organized networks of respectable white women in order to end mob violence and public disorder. They also attempted to change and strengthen stateways so as to shift power away from individuals and to the state, by encouraging growth in state police forces and by proposing new state anti-lynching laws.

Marc Lynch examines the Jordanian disengagement from the West Bank in 1988 as a case of state downsizing. The author focuses on international factors and elite politics on both sides of the Jordan ...
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Marc Lynch examines the Jordanian disengagement from the West Bank in 1988 as a case of state downsizing. The author focuses on international factors and elite politics on both sides of the Jordan River, drawing conclusions on the influences of state downsizing on the changing character of the Jordanian political regime under King Hussein and his son, Abdullah. The author examines the role of public sphere changes and the political identity, the entrepreneurs played in the process, and he outlines the reflexive institutional relationship of the disengagement on state institutions, political parties, the press, and professional organizations. Finally, he examines the role of the Arab–Israeli peace process for the formula of separation between Jordan and Palestine.Less

Right‐Sizing Over the Jordan: The Politics of Down‐Sizing Borders

Marc Lynch

Published in print: 2001-11-22

Marc Lynch examines the Jordanian disengagement from the West Bank in 1988 as a case of state downsizing. The author focuses on international factors and elite politics on both sides of the Jordan River, drawing conclusions on the influences of state downsizing on the changing character of the Jordanian political regime under King Hussein and his son, Abdullah. The author examines the role of public sphere changes and the political identity, the entrepreneurs played in the process, and he outlines the reflexive institutional relationship of the disengagement on state institutions, political parties, the press, and professional organizations. Finally, he examines the role of the Arab–Israeli peace process for the formula of separation between Jordan and Palestine.

This chapter focuses on a major force in the economy, and one that is key to the capitalist system: securities markets and the brokerage industry. Although Nasdaq online securities market was one of ...
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This chapter focuses on a major force in the economy, and one that is key to the capitalist system: securities markets and the brokerage industry. Although Nasdaq online securities market was one of the first movers in electronic markets, when Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs) came along and siphoned a considerable amount of trade away, Nasdaq, with its very survival in question, took a long time to respond to the threat. The chapter relates the story of how organizational factors made it difficult for the most successful broker, Merrill Lynch, to respond with a new price structure for trading stocks when electronic brokerages like Schwab and e-Trade came along. These examples illustrate a winner’s curse that comes from complacency and the psychological and organizational factors that often prevent a winner from responding to new events and challenges.Less

Winners and losers in the securities industry

G. AnandalingamHenry C. Lucas

Published in print: 2004-11-18

This chapter focuses on a major force in the economy, and one that is key to the capitalist system: securities markets and the brokerage industry. Although Nasdaq online securities market was one of the first movers in electronic markets, when Electronic Communications Networks (ECNs) came along and siphoned a considerable amount of trade away, Nasdaq, with its very survival in question, took a long time to respond to the threat. The chapter relates the story of how organizational factors made it difficult for the most successful broker, Merrill Lynch, to respond with a new price structure for trading stocks when electronic brokerages like Schwab and e-Trade came along. These examples illustrate a winner’s curse that comes from complacency and the psychological and organizational factors that often prevent a winner from responding to new events and challenges.

The turn of the millennium has brought with it a vigorous revival in the interdisciplinary study of theology and art. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, as a specific category of ...
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The turn of the millennium has brought with it a vigorous revival in the interdisciplinary study of theology and art. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, as a specific category of aesthetics, lacks thematic and theological coherence. More often, the idea of a Catholic imagination functions at this time as a deeply felt intuition about the organic connections that exist among theological insights, cultural background, and literary expression. The book explores the many ways that the theological work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) provides the model, content, and optic for demonstrating the credibility and range of a Catholic imagination. Since Balthasar views arts and literatures precisely as theologies, the book surveys a broad array of poetry, drama, fiction, and film and sets these readings against the central aspects of Balthasar's theological program. A major consequence of this study is the recovery of the legitimate place of a distinct “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. The book also argues that Balthasar's voice both complements and challenges contemporary critical theory and contends that postmodern interpretive methodology, with its careful critique of entrenched philosophical assumptions and reiterated codes of meaning, is not the threat to theological meaning that many fear. On the contrary, postmodernism can provide both literary critics and theologians alike with the tools that assess, challenge, and celebrate the theological imagination as it is depicted in literary art today.Less

A Theology of Criticism : Balthasar, Postmodernism, and the Catholic Imagination

Michael P. Murphy

Published in print: 2008-01-01

The turn of the millennium has brought with it a vigorous revival in the interdisciplinary study of theology and art. The notion of a Catholic imagination, however, as a specific category of aesthetics, lacks thematic and theological coherence. More often, the idea of a Catholic imagination functions at this time as a deeply felt intuition about the organic connections that exist among theological insights, cultural background, and literary expression. The book explores the many ways that the theological work of Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988) provides the model, content, and optic for demonstrating the credibility and range of a Catholic imagination. Since Balthasar views arts and literatures precisely as theologies, the book surveys a broad array of poetry, drama, fiction, and film and sets these readings against the central aspects of Balthasar's theological program. A major consequence of this study is the recovery of the legitimate place of a distinct “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. The book also argues that Balthasar's voice both complements and challenges contemporary critical theory and contends that postmodern interpretive methodology, with its careful critique of entrenched philosophical assumptions and reiterated codes of meaning, is not the threat to theological meaning that many fear. On the contrary, postmodernism can provide both literary critics and theologians alike with the tools that assess, challenge, and celebrate the theological imagination as it is depicted in literary art today.

In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating ...
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In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating such a theological vision—the chapter also attempts to locate the particular phenomena of postmodernism and deconstruction within the intersection of theology and narrative art. Balthasar anticipates the tendency of current critical theory to privilege and emphasize the amorphous breadth of both linguistic and cultural expression; and he anticipates the critical tension between those who read Catholicism as theological truth and those that might read Catholicism as a “fluctuating signifier,” as a cultural and/or literary text. Under this general theme, a dialog is opened with such diverse critics as William Lynch, Paul Giles, Michel De Certeau, and Jacques Derrida. Like them, Balthasar's theology plots a route for appreciating the aesthetic complexity and theological possibility of a broadly canvassed intertextuality and interdisciplinarity. However, Balthasar's program also defends the critical uniqueness of certain theological commitments (e.g., the transcendentals, the Incarnation, and the trinitarian structure of being) and looks to the arts to demonstrate the formal expression and aesthetic span of these phenomena. The chapter concludes with the proposition that it is the recognition of these essential questions that both challenge and aid the articulation of a Catholic imagination and that a turn to representative work in literature, poetry, and film will aid in such an articulation.Less

Michael Patrick Murphy

Published in print: 2008-01-01

In addition to laying out a general groundwork for the Catholic imagination as a critical lens—and suggesting a variety of ways that the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar aids critics in articulating such a theological vision—the chapter also attempts to locate the particular phenomena of postmodernism and deconstruction within the intersection of theology and narrative art. Balthasar anticipates the tendency of current critical theory to privilege and emphasize the amorphous breadth of both linguistic and cultural expression; and he anticipates the critical tension between those who read Catholicism as theological truth and those that might read Catholicism as a “fluctuating signifier,” as a cultural and/or literary text. Under this general theme, a dialog is opened with such diverse critics as William Lynch, Paul Giles, Michel De Certeau, and Jacques Derrida. Like them, Balthasar's theology plots a route for appreciating the aesthetic complexity and theological possibility of a broadly canvassed intertextuality and interdisciplinarity. However, Balthasar's program also defends the critical uniqueness of certain theological commitments (e.g., the transcendentals, the Incarnation, and the trinitarian structure of being) and looks to the arts to demonstrate the formal expression and aesthetic span of these phenomena. The chapter concludes with the proposition that it is the recognition of these essential questions that both challenge and aid the articulation of a Catholic imagination and that a turn to representative work in literature, poetry, and film will aid in such an articulation.

Chapter 6 provides a short synthesis of the book. Balthasar's program challenges us to first “see the form” in the world, but also to see the Beautiful, the Good, and the True at work in a broad ...
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Chapter 6 provides a short synthesis of the book. Balthasar's program challenges us to first “see the form” in the world, but also to see the Beautiful, the Good, and the True at work in a broad variety of narrative art. The book finds that, while Balthasar presents us with some practical directives that aid in elucidating the presence and veracity of such a vision, the Catholic imagination proposed does not have a monopoly on such tendencies. At minimum, the examination of the Catholic imagination helps recover the legitimate place of a “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. One conclusion posited is that the careful restoration of the theological imagination to discourses in meaning will aid in reestablishing “a theology of criticism,” that is, the kind of criticism that cultivates a more inclusive array of epistemologies. Another conclusion is that many aspects of postmodern critical thought are helping develop a more grounded—and interdisciplinary—theology of language.Less

Coda : On the Theological Imagination

Michael Patrick Murphy

Published in print: 2008-01-01

Chapter 6 provides a short synthesis of the book. Balthasar's program challenges us to first “see the form” in the world, but also to see the Beautiful, the Good, and the True at work in a broad variety of narrative art. The book finds that, while Balthasar presents us with some practical directives that aid in elucidating the presence and veracity of such a vision, the Catholic imagination proposed does not have a monopoly on such tendencies. At minimum, the examination of the Catholic imagination helps recover the legitimate place of a “theological imagination” in the critical study of literary and narrative art. One conclusion posited is that the careful restoration of the theological imagination to discourses in meaning will aid in reestablishing “a theology of criticism,” that is, the kind of criticism that cultivates a more inclusive array of epistemologies. Another conclusion is that many aspects of postmodern critical thought are helping develop a more grounded—and interdisciplinary—theology of language.

Social sciences pathologized the religious experience of black southerners at the turn of the 20th century. The new psychology of G. Stanley Hall and his disciples was a major northern cultural ...
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Social sciences pathologized the religious experience of black southerners at the turn of the 20th century. The new psychology of G. Stanley Hall and his disciples was a major northern cultural authority that provided an ideology for the oppression of blacks in the South. New psychologists, building on the popular theories of white Protestant missionaries and educators (in the South and abroad) severed the connection between black religion and the moral sense (that is, ethics or morality) by arguing that black religion had no effect on blacks' moral life and was simply depraved emotionalism. By thus pathologizing black religion, the social scientists supported widespread claims of black degeneracy and argued that a naturally criminal and immoral African character was the culprit for the oppression that blacks endured at the hands of the lynch mobs and the state in the Jim Crow South. The new psychology theorized black religion as the emotional effluvium of primitive childlike minds and thus rendered blacks as archaic outsiders in an industrial modern nation.Less

The Social Sciences and the Professional Discipline of Black Religion

Curtis J. Evans

Published in print: 2008-07-01

Social sciences pathologized the religious experience of black southerners at the turn of the 20th century. The new psychology of G. Stanley Hall and his disciples was a major northern cultural authority that provided an ideology for the oppression of blacks in the South. New psychologists, building on the popular theories of white Protestant missionaries and educators (in the South and abroad) severed the connection between black religion and the moral sense (that is, ethics or morality) by arguing that black religion had no effect on blacks' moral life and was simply depraved emotionalism. By thus pathologizing black religion, the social scientists supported widespread claims of black degeneracy and argued that a naturally criminal and immoral African character was the culprit for the oppression that blacks endured at the hands of the lynch mobs and the state in the Jim Crow South. The new psychology theorized black religion as the emotional effluvium of primitive childlike minds and thus rendered blacks as archaic outsiders in an industrial modern nation.

Various kinds of hymnody that do not fit into the categories above are considered here. They include nature hymns, and the Rivulet controversy; the hymns of Moody and Sankey, the evangelists; ...
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Various kinds of hymnody that do not fit into the categories above are considered here. They include nature hymns, and the Rivulet controversy; the hymns of Moody and Sankey, the evangelists; Afro‐American slave hymns; Scottish hymns; and children's hymnody.Less

Different Traditions

J. R. Watson

Published in print: 1999-08-12

Various kinds of hymnody that do not fit into the categories above are considered here. They include nature hymns, and the Rivulet controversy; the hymns of Moody and Sankey, the evangelists; Afro‐American slave hymns; Scottish hymns; and children's hymnody.

A crucial moral virtue of Du Bois's religious discourse is the virtue of sacrifice. His discourse of sacrifice is composed of two halves. The first half is contained in his series of parables that ...
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A crucial moral virtue of Du Bois's religious discourse is the virtue of sacrifice. His discourse of sacrifice is composed of two halves. The first half is contained in his series of parables that depict the lynching of a black Christ figures. The other half is what he calls his “Gospel of Sacrifice,” in which he enjoins black Americans to sacrifice for each other and the country at large. The difficult questions at the heart of this chapter revolve around understanding these two halves of Du Bois's sacrificial discourse. This chapter argues that despite its dangers, Du Bois acts as a Durkheimian priest and battles America's sacrificial perversions with an empowering discourse of sacrifice of his own. Du Bois attempts to transform black Americans from the victims of a sacrificial system into agents of a sacrificial system who then make claims on the political, social, and even material goods of the sacrificial system.Less

“Behold the Sign of Salvation—A Noosed Rope” : The Promise and Perils of Du Bois's Economies of Sacrifice

Jonathon S. Kahn

Published in print: 2009-10-01

A crucial moral virtue of Du Bois's religious discourse is the virtue of sacrifice. His discourse of sacrifice is composed of two halves. The first half is contained in his series of parables that depict the lynching of a black Christ figures. The other half is what he calls his “Gospel of Sacrifice,” in which he enjoins black Americans to sacrifice for each other and the country at large. The difficult questions at the heart of this chapter revolve around understanding these two halves of Du Bois's sacrificial discourse. This chapter argues that despite its dangers, Du Bois acts as a Durkheimian priest and battles America's sacrificial perversions with an empowering discourse of sacrifice of his own. Du Bois attempts to transform black Americans from the victims of a sacrificial system into agents of a sacrificial system who then make claims on the political, social, and even material goods of the sacrificial system.

As evolutionary biologists have always been concerned with the genetic basis for the emergence of complex phenotypes, advances in genomics and systems biology are facilitating a paradigm shift of ...
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As evolutionary biologists have always been concerned with the genetic basis for the emergence of complex phenotypes, advances in genomics and systems biology are facilitating a paradigm shift of molecular evolutionary biology toward a better understanding of the relationship of genotypes and phenotypes. From an evolutionary perspective, the central question is whether natural selection is a necessary and/or sufficient force to explain the emergence of genomic and cellular features that underlie the building of complex organisms. Lynch has criticized the adaptive hypothesis for the origins of organismal complexity, claiming that nothing in evolution makes sense in light of population genetics that takes the effects of mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection into account. The importance of mutation types and genetic drifts on the phenotype evolution has also been emphasized by Nei and his associates. One plausible approach to resolving these fundamental issues is to model the features of biological complexity as parameters instead of emerged properties, under the principle of population genetics and molecular evolution. This chapter discusses some recent results in this trend.Less

Advanced Topics in Systems Biology and Network Evolution

Xun Gu

Published in print: 2010-11-04

As evolutionary biologists have always been concerned with the genetic basis for the emergence of complex phenotypes, advances in genomics and systems biology are facilitating a paradigm shift of molecular evolutionary biology toward a better understanding of the relationship of genotypes and phenotypes. From an evolutionary perspective, the central question is whether natural selection is a necessary and/or sufficient force to explain the emergence of genomic and cellular features that underlie the building of complex organisms. Lynch has criticized the adaptive hypothesis for the origins of organismal complexity, claiming that nothing in evolution makes sense in light of population genetics that takes the effects of mutation, genetic drift, and natural selection into account. The importance of mutation types and genetic drifts on the phenotype evolution has also been emphasized by Nei and his associates. One plausible approach to resolving these fundamental issues is to model the features of biological complexity as parameters instead of emerged properties, under the principle of population genetics and molecular evolution. This chapter discusses some recent results in this trend.

When Orange County, California, filed for Chapter 9 protection on December 6, 1994, it became the largest municipality in United States history to declare bankruptcy. Providing a comprehensive ...
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When Orange County, California, filed for Chapter 9 protection on December 6, 1994, it became the largest municipality in United States history to declare bankruptcy. Providing a comprehensive analysis of this momentous fiscal crisis, the book uncovers the many twists and turns from the dark days in December 1994 to the financial recovery of June 1996. Utilizing a wealth of primary materials from the county government and Merrill Lynch, as well as interviews with key officials and players in this drama, it untangles the causes of this $1.64 billion fiasco. It identifies three factors critical to understanding the bankruptcy: one, the political fragmentation of the numerous local governments in the area; two, the fiscal conservatism underlying voters' feelings about their tax dollars; and three, the financial austerity in state government and in meeting rising state expenditures. The book finds that these forces help to explain how a county known for its affluence and conservative politics could have allowed its cities' school, water, transportation, and sanitation agencies to be held hostage to this failed investment pool. Meticulously examining the events that led up to the bankruptcy, the local officials' response to the fiscal emergency, and the road to fiscal recovery—as well as the local government reforms engendered by the crisis—this book is a dramatic and instructive economic morality tale. It underlines the dangers inherent in a freewheeling bull economy and the imperatives of local and state governments to protect fiscal assets. As this book shows, Orange County need not—and should not—happen again.Less

When Government Fails : The Orange County Bankruptcy

Mark Baldassare

Published in print: 1998-01-06

When Orange County, California, filed for Chapter 9 protection on December 6, 1994, it became the largest municipality in United States history to declare bankruptcy. Providing a comprehensive analysis of this momentous fiscal crisis, the book uncovers the many twists and turns from the dark days in December 1994 to the financial recovery of June 1996. Utilizing a wealth of primary materials from the county government and Merrill Lynch, as well as interviews with key officials and players in this drama, it untangles the causes of this $1.64 billion fiasco. It identifies three factors critical to understanding the bankruptcy: one, the political fragmentation of the numerous local governments in the area; two, the fiscal conservatism underlying voters' feelings about their tax dollars; and three, the financial austerity in state government and in meeting rising state expenditures. The book finds that these forces help to explain how a county known for its affluence and conservative politics could have allowed its cities' school, water, transportation, and sanitation agencies to be held hostage to this failed investment pool. Meticulously examining the events that led up to the bankruptcy, the local officials' response to the fiscal emergency, and the road to fiscal recovery—as well as the local government reforms engendered by the crisis—this book is a dramatic and instructive economic morality tale. It underlines the dangers inherent in a freewheeling bull economy and the imperatives of local and state governments to protect fiscal assets. As this book shows, Orange County need not—and should not—happen again.

This book explains how lynching arose precisely out of an ideology of the sense of the rights accrued to someone possessing democratic freedom, and the sense that those rights were directly and ...
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This book explains how lynching arose precisely out of an ideology of the sense of the rights accrued to someone possessing democratic freedom, and the sense that those rights were directly and formally a product of the earliest and most essential mandates of a slave society. Lynching can be broadly defined as the extralegal pursuit of vengeance against an offender of communal moral standards. The rationales and justifications that lynchers and their apologists produced to tease out the defenses of lynching reveal about American political discourse of all kinds are examined in this book. The most recent manifestations of the American political discourse has been African American public figures who have described their political ordeals as a high-technology lynching, and media coverage of a legal indictment for perjury as exhibiting an unethical, illegal lynch mob mentality. In more regular ways, frequent metaphorical employments of lynching are used as a way of terrorizing black Americans. The book demonstrates that the practice of lynching in American history is not only shameful but also central, and recognizes the ways in which lynching is both a metaphor and literal continues to haunt the republic.Less

American Lynching

Ashraf H. A. Rushdy

Published in print: 2012-10-30

This book explains how lynching arose precisely out of an ideology of the sense of the rights accrued to someone possessing democratic freedom, and the sense that those rights were directly and formally a product of the earliest and most essential mandates of a slave society. Lynching can be broadly defined as the extralegal pursuit of vengeance against an offender of communal moral standards. The rationales and justifications that lynchers and their apologists produced to tease out the defenses of lynching reveal about American political discourse of all kinds are examined in this book. The most recent manifestations of the American political discourse has been African American public figures who have described their political ordeals as a high-technology lynching, and media coverage of a legal indictment for perjury as exhibiting an unethical, illegal lynch mob mentality. In more regular ways, frequent metaphorical employments of lynching are used as a way of terrorizing black Americans. The book demonstrates that the practice of lynching in American history is not only shameful but also central, and recognizes the ways in which lynching is both a metaphor and literal continues to haunt the republic.

This chapter describes the interethnic violence in California's mining region driven by conflicting customs, jealousy, and rising nationalist sentiment. Many Chileans arrived in California bringing with them time-tested mining techniques, geological knowledge, and advanced mineral-processing technologies. As a result, they were among California's most successful miners. Although their accomplishments earned them the respect of some Yankees, their efficient handiwork bred resentment among other North American prospectors. From 1848 onward, California became a so-called “Linchocracia,” a space dominated by aggressive performances of manifest destiny and nativist ideology. Lynching—or public retributive acts of murder in which the perpetrators claim to be acting in the name of popular justice or some higher moral authority—became prevalent.Less

Manifest Destiny at the End of a Rope

Edward Dallam Melillo

Published in print: 2015-10-20

This chapter describes the interethnic violence in California's mining region driven by conflicting customs, jealousy, and rising nationalist sentiment. Many Chileans arrived in California bringing with them time-tested mining techniques, geological knowledge, and advanced mineral-processing technologies. As a result, they were among California's most successful miners. Although their accomplishments earned them the respect of some Yankees, their efficient handiwork bred resentment among other North American prospectors. From 1848 onward, California became a so-called “Linchocracia,” a space dominated by aggressive performances of manifest destiny and nativist ideology. Lynching—or public retributive acts of murder in which the perpetrators claim to be acting in the name of popular justice or some higher moral authority—became prevalent.

Misframing and heuristic‐driven bias combine to confuse investors about the relative contributions of skill and luck in fund performance. Investors invariably attribute excessive weight to skill, and ...
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Misframing and heuristic‐driven bias combine to confuse investors about the relative contributions of skill and luck in fund performance. Investors invariably attribute excessive weight to skill, and consequently they tend to overweight the importance of an individual fund's track record. Moreover, open‐end mutual funds companies tend to play to investors' weaknesses by inducing opaque frames.Less

Hersh Shefrin

Published in print: 2002-10-17

Misframing and heuristic‐driven bias combine to confuse investors about the relative contributions of skill and luck in fund performance. Investors invariably attribute excessive weight to skill, and consequently they tend to overweight the importance of an individual fund's track record. Moreover, open‐end mutual funds companies tend to play to investors' weaknesses by inducing opaque frames.

This chapter provides a context for analyzing contemporary interracial narratives by offering a brief social history of heterosexual and same-sex interracial intimacy. This history begins with the ...
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This chapter provides a context for analyzing contemporary interracial narratives by offering a brief social history of heterosexual and same-sex interracial intimacy. This history begins with the early antimiscegenation laws in Virginia and Maryland. It describes the double standard embodied in these laws that effectively outlawed “fornication” and marriage between Black men and White women, even as White men engaged in widespread rape of enslaved Black women. Sex between White men and Black women increased the former’s power, status, and property, while sex between Black men and White women often resulted in brutal beatings or lynchings. Interracial intimacy remained exceedingly rare after the Civil War, especially in the Jim Crow South. The chapter continues by examining early records of same-sex interraciality at the end of the nineteenth century. It discusses interracial sex and sociability during the Harlem Renaissance, a period when “slumming” came into vogue and White patrons crossed segregated cityscapes to visit Harlem nightclubs and speakeasies. The chapter then describes the bar and rent-party scene among gays and lesbians in the early-to-mid-twentieth century and concludes with a brief discussion of the legal case Loving v. Virginia in 1967.Less

The Historical Roots of Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Black/White Intimacy

Amy C. Steinbugler

Published in print: 2012-08-21

This chapter provides a context for analyzing contemporary interracial narratives by offering a brief social history of heterosexual and same-sex interracial intimacy. This history begins with the early antimiscegenation laws in Virginia and Maryland. It describes the double standard embodied in these laws that effectively outlawed “fornication” and marriage between Black men and White women, even as White men engaged in widespread rape of enslaved Black women. Sex between White men and Black women increased the former’s power, status, and property, while sex between Black men and White women often resulted in brutal beatings or lynchings. Interracial intimacy remained exceedingly rare after the Civil War, especially in the Jim Crow South. The chapter continues by examining early records of same-sex interraciality at the end of the nineteenth century. It discusses interracial sex and sociability during the Harlem Renaissance, a period when “slumming” came into vogue and White patrons crossed segregated cityscapes to visit Harlem nightclubs and speakeasies. The chapter then describes the bar and rent-party scene among gays and lesbians in the early-to-mid-twentieth century and concludes with a brief discussion of the legal case Loving v. Virginia in 1967.

Although the end of Prohibition has brought about one civil liberty, many individual rights were still being trampled — namely, those of the American Negro. Throughout the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan ...
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Although the end of Prohibition has brought about one civil liberty, many individual rights were still being trampled — namely, those of the American Negro. Throughout the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan regrouped and public lynching increased, but the atrocities remained unchecked by the Roosevelt Administration. In 1931 and 1932, two horrific lynchings on Maryland's Eastern Shore prompted Mencken to write some of his strongest columns against the subject, resulting in the Baltimore Sun being censored and Mencken himself receiving death threats. Not to be deterred, Mencken joined the NAACP to campaign for the Costigan-Wagner Bill to put an end to lynching.Less

MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND

Marion Elizabeth Rodgers

Published in print: 2006-01-26

Although the end of Prohibition has brought about one civil liberty, many individual rights were still being trampled — namely, those of the American Negro. Throughout the 1930s, the Ku Klux Klan regrouped and public lynching increased, but the atrocities remained unchecked by the Roosevelt Administration. In 1931 and 1932, two horrific lynchings on Maryland's Eastern Shore prompted Mencken to write some of his strongest columns against the subject, resulting in the Baltimore Sun being censored and Mencken himself receiving death threats. Not to be deterred, Mencken joined the NAACP to campaign for the Costigan-Wagner Bill to put an end to lynching.

This deeply researched prequel to the author's 2006 study Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947, analyzes the foundations of lynching in American social history. Scrutinizing the ...
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This deeply researched prequel to the author's 2006 study Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947, analyzes the foundations of lynching in American social history. Scrutinizing the vigilante movements and lynching violence that occurred in the middle decades of the nineteenth century on the Southern, Midwestern, and far Western frontiers, this book offers new insights into collective violence in the pre-Civil War era. The book examines the antecedents of American lynching in an early modern Anglo-European folk and legal heritage. This is the first book to consider the crucial emergence of the practice of lynching slaves in antebellum America, and it also leads the way in analyzing the history of American lynching in a global context. Arguing that the origins of lynching cannot be restricted to any particular region, the book shows how the national and transatlantic context is essential for understanding how whites used mob violence to enforce the racial and class hierarchies across the United States.Less

The Roots of Rough Justice : Origins of American Lynching

Michael J. Pfeifer

Published in print: 2014-01-02

This deeply researched prequel to the author's 2006 study Rough Justice: Lynching and American Society, 1874–1947, analyzes the foundations of lynching in American social history. Scrutinizing the vigilante movements and lynching violence that occurred in the middle decades of the nineteenth century on the Southern, Midwestern, and far Western frontiers, this book offers new insights into collective violence in the pre-Civil War era. The book examines the antecedents of American lynching in an early modern Anglo-European folk and legal heritage. This is the first book to consider the crucial emergence of the practice of lynching slaves in antebellum America, and it also leads the way in analyzing the history of American lynching in a global context. Arguing that the origins of lynching cannot be restricted to any particular region, the book shows how the national and transatlantic context is essential for understanding how whites used mob violence to enforce the racial and class hierarchies across the United States.

There are sixty-nine sparkling letters which constitute the surviving correspondence between Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale, the centre of the literary circle at Streatham, and Dr Charles Burney, the ...
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There are sixty-nine sparkling letters which constitute the surviving correspondence between Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale, the centre of the literary circle at Streatham, and Dr Charles Burney, the historian of music. The Thrale–Burney correspondence exemplifies a problem in current critical thinking on the letter, for the paucity of comment on this art form in English might be traced to the problem of its generic placement and the consequent lack of appropriate criteria for judgement. The critic of correspondences has to take into account both the literary and the historical features of the genre. To be fruitfully studied, the letter must be considered both as a rhetorically written and read literary artefact and as a historical document which records a moment in the life of its writer and of its recipient. This chapter attempts to illuminate the Thrale–Burney correspondence, noticing especially how letters delicately negotiate various kinds of ‘distance’ between correspondents; how they forge and rupture relationships; and how a letter held in the hand of its recipient might function as a powerful metonymical symbol of its writer’s presence.Less

The ‘Chit-Chat way’: The Letters of Mrs Thrale and Dr Burney

Alvaro Ribeiro

Published in print: 1996-03-07

There are sixty-nine sparkling letters which constitute the surviving correspondence between Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale, the centre of the literary circle at Streatham, and Dr Charles Burney, the historian of music. The Thrale–Burney correspondence exemplifies a problem in current critical thinking on the letter, for the paucity of comment on this art form in English might be traced to the problem of its generic placement and the consequent lack of appropriate criteria for judgement. The critic of correspondences has to take into account both the literary and the historical features of the genre. To be fruitfully studied, the letter must be considered both as a rhetorically written and read literary artefact and as a historical document which records a moment in the life of its writer and of its recipient. This chapter attempts to illuminate the Thrale–Burney correspondence, noticing especially how letters delicately negotiate various kinds of ‘distance’ between correspondents; how they forge and rupture relationships; and how a letter held in the hand of its recipient might function as a powerful metonymical symbol of its writer’s presence.

In the late nineteenth century, the stereotype of the black male as sexual beast functioned for white supremacists as an externalized symbol of social chaos against which all whites would unite for ...
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In the late nineteenth century, the stereotype of the black male as sexual beast functioned for white supremacists as an externalized symbol of social chaos against which all whites would unite for the purpose of national renewal. The emergence of this stereotype in American culture and literature during and after Reconstruction was related to the growth of white-on-black violence, as white lynch mobs acted in “defence” of white womanhood, the white family, and white nationalism. This book investigates American literary encounters with the conditions, processes, and consequences of such violence through the representation of not just the black rapist stereotype, but of other crucial stereotypes in mediating moments of white social crisis: “lascivious” black womanhood; avenging white masculinity; and passive white femininity. The author argues that these figures together signify the tangle of race and gender representation emerging from turn-of-the-century American literature. The book brings together Charles W. Chestnutt, Kate Chopin, Thomas Dixon, David Bryant Fulton, Pauline Hopkins, Mark Twain, and Ida B. Wells: famous, infamous, or long-neglected figures who produced novels, essays, stories, and pamphlets in the volatile period of the 1890s to the early 1900s, and who contributed to the continual renegotiation and redefinition of the terms and boundaries of a national dialogue on racial violence.Less

Rape, Race, and Lynching : The Red Record of American Literature, 1890–1912

Sandra Gunning

Published in print: 1997-02-20

In the late nineteenth century, the stereotype of the black male as sexual beast functioned for white supremacists as an externalized symbol of social chaos against which all whites would unite for the purpose of national renewal. The emergence of this stereotype in American culture and literature during and after Reconstruction was related to the growth of white-on-black violence, as white lynch mobs acted in “defence” of white womanhood, the white family, and white nationalism. This book investigates American literary encounters with the conditions, processes, and consequences of such violence through the representation of not just the black rapist stereotype, but of other crucial stereotypes in mediating moments of white social crisis: “lascivious” black womanhood; avenging white masculinity; and passive white femininity. The author argues that these figures together signify the tangle of race and gender representation emerging from turn-of-the-century American literature. The book brings together Charles W. Chestnutt, Kate Chopin, Thomas Dixon, David Bryant Fulton, Pauline Hopkins, Mark Twain, and Ida B. Wells: famous, infamous, or long-neglected figures who produced novels, essays, stories, and pamphlets in the volatile period of the 1890s to the early 1900s, and who contributed to the continual renegotiation and redefinition of the terms and boundaries of a national dialogue on racial violence.